Good News for McNeese Player Injured in SFA Game

The SFA Lumberjacks played host to the McNeese State Cowboys this past Saturday night. The #21st ranked Cowboys won the game 28-14. This game featured a very bizarre and scary series of events in the first quarter.

SFA had the ball at the McNeese 1-yard-line, the Jack's Zac Conque was hit hard as he approached the goal line and the ball popped out and into the hands of a Cowboy who took the ball the distance in the other direction...touchdown McNeese State.

I, along with thousands of fans in purple, sat stunned. This was basically a 14 point swing, but before I could grasp the devastation of that play, I was quickly reminded that this is a game, and what was transpiring on the field just in front of the McNeese State bench was much more serious.

#90, Anthony Yruegas, of the Cowboys was lying face down on the turf and not moving. The training staff for both teams as well as sideline doctors rushed to his side. I did not see what caused the sophomore from West Monroe to go down. He was no where near the main action of the fumble return, but I could tell by the way he was being attended to, the neck and/or spine must be in question.

Yruegas was on the field for about 5-10 minutes before an ambulance was brought onto the field. Another 10 minutes or so went by before the player was carefully placed on a backboard, then a gurney, and then into the ambulance. I was never able to get the details on exactly what happened, nor the specifics of his injury, but I was able to piece this together from 2nd hand accounts.

Yruegas apparently suffered an injury to the neck which led to tingling sensations to some of his extremities. He did not lose consciousness nor feeling, but the medical personnel attending him wanted to take every precaution. I couldn't see from my vantage point but those on the field said Yruegas was talking and moving his toes and fingers. That evening, according to a Tweet from the McNeese State Athletics Twitter Page, it was revealed that Anthony Yruegas would be just fine.